📖 Biblical Definition
The cosmopolitan Greek port-city on the four-mile isthmus connecting the Peloponnese to mainland Greece, controlling traffic between the Aegean and Adriatic Seas. Corinth was wealthy, urban, multicultural, and legendary for sexual immorality — the Greek verb korinthiazomai (to behave like a Corinthian) was slang for prostitution. The temple of Aphrodite on Acrocorinth was said to house a thousand cult prostitutes. Paul founded the Corinthian church on his second missionary journey, staying eighteen months (Acts 18:1-18). He met Aquila and Priscilla there, working as tentmakers together. The church Paul left was subsequently riddled with the problems his two preserved Corinthian letters address: factionalism, sexual immorality, lawsuits between believers, abuses of the Lord's Supper, confused worship, doubts about resurrection. Yet Paul addresses them as sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints (1 Cor 1:2). The Corinthian correspondence remains one of the NT's richest sources for practical pastoral theology.
📜 Webster 1828 Definition
Cosmopolitan Greek port; Paul's troubled church.
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The wealthy, cosmopolitan port-city of Greece on the isthmus joining the Peloponnese to the mainland; notorious for sexual license (the verb 'to corinthianize' meant to fornicate); site of Paul's eighteen-month church-plant and recipient of two surviving canonical letters.
📖 Key Scripture
Acts 18:1 — "After these things Paul departed from Athens, and came to Corinth."
Acts 18:11 — "And he continued there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them."
1 Corinthians 6:11 — "And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified."
⚠️ Modern Corruption
Read as merely backdrop to Paul's letters, missing the city's deep moral collapse that made the gospel scandalous and beautiful there.
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Corinth was the Vegas of antiquity. Paul founded a church among prostitutes, sexually broken men, and the religiously confused — and the gospel held. 1 Corinthians 6:11 — 'and such were some of you' — is one of the great gospel-power statements.
🔗 Greek & Hebrew Roots
Greek Korinthos.
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['Greek', 'G2882', 'Korinthos', 'Corinth']
['Greek', 'G2879', 'Korinthios', 'Corinthian']
Usage
"The gospel works in Corinths."
"Read 1 Corinthians 6:11 with awe."